The ability to amplify a plurality of nucleic acid sequences, such as a genomic library or a cDNA library, is critical given the current methods of sequencing. Current sequencing technologies require millions of copies of nucleic acid per sequencing reaction, therefore, amplification of the initial DNA is necessary before genomic sequencing. Furthermore, the sequencing of a human genome would require tens of millions of different sequencing reactions.
Current techniques and systems for in vitro genome amplification involve laborious cloning and culturing protocols that have limited the utility of genomic sequencing. Other techniques, such as PCR, while fast and reliable, are unable to amplify a mixture of different fragments of DNA a genome in a representative and clonal fashion.
While random primed PCR can be easily engineered to amplify a plurality of nucleic acids in one reaction, this method is not preferred because the amplified product will be a mixture of different DNA fragments from the library. In addition, in a random PCR environment starting with a plurality of fragments, some DNA sequences are preferentially amplified at the expense of other sequences such that the amplified product does not represent the starting material. This problem with PCR may be overcome if each individual member of a library is amplified in a separate reaction.
However, this approach may be impractical if many thousands of separate reaction tubes are required for the amplification process, as a genomic library or cDNA library may include more than 1,000,000 fragments. Individual amplification of each fragment of these libraries in separate, conventional reaction tube is not practical.